eulogy for a friend

When I asked Ali about his skin cancer before the start of Cez's church wedding, he spoke lightly of it. It was as if he just contracted the flu. He said he would be starting chemotherapy sessions the month after that. I was not sure if he noticed it but I was worried, terribly worried. But the way he spoke about the matter somehow assured me that things would be all right, as things are wont to do whenever we over-worry about them. Our conversation was cut short because he had to take pictures of the wedding (he was the official photographer) and I had to play the piano for the wedding march. That was six months ago. I just learned thirty minutes ago that he would be buried this coming Thursday.

I was probably the very first person from his high school batchmates to have learned of his condition because his mom had informed my sister about it in December. It came as a shock, and, somehow, I got the impression that it was not something to be divulged, not right away.

However, I felt that this was something my high school friends should know, too. So, after having whored before Ali’s camera the whole night at the wedding, I told some of them about it. They had the right to know. And, I thought, should the inevitable happen, they would have had time to cherish the person while he was still alive. The inevitable did happen. And all we can cherish now are memories.

Years ago, when dreams still ran high and science investigatory projects were considered the pinnacle of our achievements, Ali was a constant companion. Not a lot of people may know it but we did become quite close especially during the last year of high school. We used to hang out a lot, together with Bonny. He used to go to our house, and, sitting side by side on the piano bench, we would play Blue Moon in four different variations—jazz, classical, pop, and just plain funky. He played primero and I secondo. He marveled at how effortlessly I would shift from classical to jazz in one bar. But when he himself learned the trick of musical improvisation, he got so adept at it he started doing it with practically every pop song.

After I had taught him the rudiments of reading notes, he got to play slightly more difficult pieces. He was a fast learner and his interest in the instrument never waned. Later on, he got good enough to play regularly in his church, Iglesia ni Cristo.

“Improvisation is not allowed there,” he told me once, after playing in church. “You have to strictly follow the music sheet.”

I don’t want to take the credit, though. I merely showed him the door and he entered it with gusto, like most of the other things he engaged in—photography being one of them.

At a time when text messaging was still unheard of, we would spend hours on the telephone mostly talking about his exploits with girls or those he merely fancied. There were instances when I actually fell asleep and he would wake me up by pressing a button on the phone, which made my earwax shoot out of my eardrums, that jerk!

During those phone calls, too, he got to bare his dreams, which, unfortunately, I don’t remember anymore. Only the more lurid parts of the conversations got stuck in my mind, as these regular talks were always punctuated with laughter, jokes, and general rubbish. Suffice it to say that I got the privilege of knowing the other side of him. He was always seen as a class clown with a big nose, someone who didn’t seem to take things seriously, who always made fun of things and found something funny in anything. In our regular phone calls, I realized that he was dead serious about many things in life.

Whenever we would visit Bonny, we would deliberately pause at his gate (even if it was wide open) and call Bonny’s name out loud in a sing-song manner, he doing the base part and I the tenor part. It was one of those things we did to amuse—or annoy, depending on the case—Bonny.

At Bonny’s place, we used to watch the 10th Anniversary concert of Les Miserables. He loved the musical so much that he read the thick, unabridged English translation of Victor Hugo’s original. He lent me this book and, somehow, I never got to finish reading it, preferring the abridged, simplified French version. This dilapidated book is still in my shelf at home.

His sister being a ballerina, he was able to procure complimentary tickets for me and Bonny for a performance of Romeo and Juliet at the main theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines with none other than prima ballerina Lisa Macuja playing the lead. It was the very first ballet I had ever seen.

We shared a passion for music. The Phantom of the Opera, of course, was our favorite musical during that time because we had to do our own version of it for a school competition. I played the title role and he was one of the unforgettable, nameless extras trying to look good in the background. We fabulously lost the competition to a group that lip-synched the whole thing.

We used to sing Tong Tong tong pakitong kitong to the tune of Phantom of the Opera; again, he did the base part, I the tenor. We would sing it whenever we were bored. Or just to annoy whoever was within earshot.

He told me once that whenever he would hear Think of Me, he imagined his future wife to be that girl, to have that pristine voice singing with yearning and longing. I have yet to hear Maria Mariquit sing to know if, indeed, she sounds like Sarah Brightman. But even if she doesn’t, I’m sure Ali saw in her much more than what a fictional Christine Daeé can ever offer. And I have yet to see Karl Matthew, his baby who will never know how fun a dad Ali could have been.

Ten months ago, when Ali took touching pictures of my father’s funeral, I had no inkling that he would follow suit. Ten months ago, too, his mom told me how happy Ali had been when he got his new car. “He was like a boy,” she said. And in many ways, that’s how I, his high school classmate and friend, would remember him, like a boy with a happy heart and a big nose.

Life has a way of playing jokes on us. Or should I say, ‘improvising’ at the last minute. The joker sometimes leaves earlier, making the hall silent, desolate. The jests, the antics, the fun, however, would never ever die. They will linger as long as we need them.

Goodbye, Ali. It had been one hell of a ride.

sleep over

The day was arid and the breeze balmy at the park. People were mostly lazing around on the lawn; the men shirtless and the women in their bikinis. Some half-naked children were cavorting in the fountain. My friend and I were slumped on a picnic mat, finishing leftover wine and potato chips. From a distance, we could see a very young couple petting and necking on a bench, both of them seemed like they hadn’t grown body hair in the right places yet.

“That’s the reason why I’m quite apprehensive about raising kids here, if ever I would have kids” she quipped. And then we guessed how old exactly they could be. Nine? Eleven? Definitely not more than twelve.

A few feet from us, a slew of sick-looking pigeons were feasting on Buddha-knows-what. They’re also having a picnic, my friend said with a faint smile. On normal days, she regards the creatures with disgust and calls them ‘flying rats.’

Life seemed less harrowing that afternoon, especially under the shade of a flimsily foliaged tree, which barely shaded us from the evening sun (for the sun sets around 10 p.m. here). Homesickness, apprehensions, and other afflictions were momentarily dissolved in the boiling air as we discussed life, politics, intolerance, plans, and other people’s lives.

By and by, her boyfriend arrived and we started playing UNO cards. When a guy from another group of picnickers signified his intention, quite absurdly, to join our game, he—my friend’s boyfriend—told him it was our last game and we were about to leave. And we did, slowly, for such sun-drenched nights discouraged haste. The plan was to have dinner at their apartment and then continue playing cards, or just hang out.

At the apartment, another bottle of wine was opened and we feasted on bread, stinky (but great-tasting) cheese, and ready-made pasta. After some sumptuous dessert bought from a local boulangerie, we had three or four games of bingo chess (which they called Puissance 4). Each time, he won. I made a mental note of his strategy. Next time—maybe, just maybe—I would defeat him.

Several games of UNO came after that. They both made fun of my colorblindness. Fortunately for me, the cards’ colors were pretty solid and unmistakable in my eyes.

“Or maybe he can’t read numbers, too!” he later commented when, in between laughs, I made a mistake with the numbers. If they could see my grades in Math when I was in school, they would probably be convinced that number-blindness, indeed, exists.

I was luckier with UNO this time. I won several games. And even if we were just three, we still managed to gang up on each other.

“It’s two Asians against a European,” she said. Later on, he retaliated: “This time, it’s two boys against one girl!”

When we got tired of UNO, we started playing Carcassone, a tile-based German board game named after a medieval French town. It involved building a terrain with castles, bridges, prairies, and abbeys, and then stationing followers—vassals, more like it—on them. They both tried to explain the game to me as we played.

“Can I kill your followers?” I asked.
“No, you can’t do that.”
“Can I raise an army to invade your castle?”
“Nope.”
“What if I wanted to?”
“Nothing of that sort. Your violent tendencies are showing!”

Since I was a neophyte, they were both kind to me and helped me build my fortified castles. By the time the game was done, I had the most extensive castles on the terrain, which of course, meant more points.

It was already midnight when we decided to stop. Since it was raining that night, he suggested that I spend the night there. Fearing that I would no longer get a bus ride home, I agreed.
He inflated an air bed, lent me some comfortable clothes, wedged earplugs into his ears, and then went to bed. She, on the other hand, decided to watch TV first. So I decided to stay up with her. We ended up just talking about scandals, gossip, pretentions, fathers, more gossip, table manners, life, and her school application. And then the night deepened. The balmy breeze gave way to a cool gentle wind. The aridness of the day had finally ended. Even in the absence of the stubborn sun, there was still no haste to go to rest.

But when I finally decided to sleep, I tormented their earplugged dreams with my divine snoring.

luningning

While walking with my friends on a frosted street in Malakoff, Plateau-de-Vanves, on our way to the Metro station, I said something to the effect that, in a few weeks, we would all fly back to Manila and all this would be over like it never happened. Lu, who was walking nearest me, smiled and said something like “we will surely be back, right? This won't be our last time here.” I don't remember having said anything. I just buried my freezing hands, leather gloves and all, deeper into my pockets. Damn, it was cold and my breath was starting to smell like stale croissant.

That was two years ago.

Now, Lu is (as of this writing) on her way back to France to take her master's degree at Science Politique, an elite school (les Parisiens call it grande école) in the heart of Paris. That day in Malakoff is a hazy illusion now, more like a scene from some sleazy movie on pirated DVD. And her comment then was something one would promptly forget about, like a passing fart. I never thought she was serious when she said she'd go back. This woman is really determined. She knows how to dream and she will try to reach it, no matter what.

Don't get me wrong. You might get the idea that she's some sort of wily woman who's into wheeling and dealing just to get what she wants. Far from it. She's just determined and hard-working. Period. Just don't make her heat up something in the microwave oven or you'll risk burning your whole house. Now don't get me into talking about how she watched her lasagna burn in the microwave in her hotel room and how she patiently looked at the thing as wisps of smoke shot out of the machine, all the while thinking that it was part of the cooking process. She spent weeks trying to scrub the black stains off the plate, fearing that she might be charged extra by the hotel if they found out. And, weeks after the incident, I could still smell burnt lasagna in her room when I went there to use her bathroom (there was no freaking hot water in our damn room).

Somehow, I always ended up sitting beside her on the plane and even on the train on our way back to Paris from Lourdes (where we spent the whole afternoon drinking wine just right across the world-famous grotto of the Virgin Mary). Mind you, she said she didn't hear me snore at all! Either she thought my snoring was the drone of the plane's engine or she snored louder than I did. During these long flights, we got to talk about a lot of things—philosophy, Philippine politics, the arts, life, our dreams (or on my part, lack thereof), plans, common friends (it turns out she knows one of the most infamous people in my office before), practically all sorts of stuff. She always had something smart to say about anything, and if she didn't, she'd invent something, like “that must've been the street where the barricade in Les Misérables was set up” or “this must've been the exact spot where Marie Antoinette stayed to have her fake mole attached,” or some stuff like that.

One time, while waiting for the mass to start inside the gothic Notre Dame, we got to talk about agnosticism, atheism, and the highly political nature of the Church hierarchy. While the ancient pipe organ blared lugubriously impassioned baroque music up on the choir loft, we sat at the back, a few pews away from the rest of the gang, who were psyching themselves up for a French mass. “It's quite ironic that we are talking about these stuff inside a cathedral,” I said. I won't reveal the nitty-gritty of what we actually discussed. Suffice it to say that her take on the issue was something I found very interesting.

While walking on the cobbled streets of Île de la Cité or traversing the deadened floor of the expansive Conciergerie, we wondered why we, as a people, were not able to produce such grand monuments that are celebrated all over the world. Such huge, adobe structures are ill-suited for our climate and culture, I said. We did build some amazing things, like the Rice Terraces, for example. But that's not as celebrated as these stone temples, she reasoned out. She was right. Maybe being a colonial lapdog for so long has something to do with it? Even the valorization of such monuments can be politicized like presidential appointments.

After ogling over Napoléon Bonaparte's well-preserved horse at Les Invalides, the gang already seemed too ill-disposed to continue sightseeing. One even suggested that we just go back to our hotel because we needed to rest. It was drizzling and the rain felt like cold syringe needles cross-stitching through our clothes. Despite that, I felt like I still had the energy to walk around and explore. I didn't really care if I had to do it alone (on several occasions, I had wandered the streets of Paris alone, and in the dead of night, at that). I'd rather get lost in the labyrinthine Metro tunnels than spend my time counting my calluses inside a hotel room. Lu, fortunately, was also thinking of the same thing. So she told the group that she'd rather walk around with me and make the most of her stay in the City of Lights. Upon hearing this, the group decided to stay with us, much to the chagrin of those whose feet were already aching. And so we walked toward the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, which were, unfortunately, both closed for restoration. There, between the dark façades of these two massive palaces, we hung around and thus was born our own bastardized language: Frangalogish. It's a combination of French, English, and Tagalog.

“Mon Dieu, how cute naman your parapluie, Puis-je borrow naman ça, kasi il pleut na eh.”

“Yeah, bien sûr, bakit naman non? Pero demain, il faut return it to moi na parce que je le need eh, ok lang ba, hein?”

“You're so gentil, mon friend! Je te dois big time, grabe!”

“So, are nous going to go aller à l'hôtel na maintenant? My balls are like freezing already comme un ice candy in the sari-sari magasin eh.”

“Good idée! Alors, allons-y na, baka mag-close pa the sortie sa Malakoff eh, super loin pa naman the other station in Porte-de-Vanves, merde. I don't want to marcher sa street na super froid to the bone, baka may crotte pa ng mga freaking chiens. Merde talaga!”

On that note, language purists held up elegant urns to puke their guts into.

Lu had already seen the movie Before Sunset, which had been shot on location in Paris. Naturally, she was excited to visit the places where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy had their insightful verbal exchanges.
So one night, we, Lu, Dax, and I, went to Île-de-Saint-Louis, hoping to chance upon a familiar landmark from the movie. I had so much fun scouring the place that I forgot I was supposed to go to the Brogniart Palace to meet Elsa, the French girl I had met on my second day there. I don't remember what lame excuse I told her that night, but boy, she was really pissed! Good thing I had some presents for her. [Elsa, tu te souviens bien ce nuit? Je suis désolé j'ai manqué à te voir, c'était trop impolit et stupide. Merci pour m'avoir rencontré à Porte-de-Vanves malgré le temps. Ce qui m'a fait peur le plus c'était ton fureur! Héhé. Ne mets pas en colère à moi, s'il te plaît.]

I find Lu a great companion when we combed the galleries of the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Musée de l'Armée and all the other museums we visited there. She seemed to understand my tendency to drool over Gaugin, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Rodin, et al. Perhaps because she, herself, drooled over them more than I did. It was such fun having her around because she shared my excitement over art and history.

Even in food, we seem to have the same line of thought. One time, the whole gang went to this crass French fastfood restaurant called Quick. Lu and I decided not to buy food there. We didn't go to Paris to sample stupid hamburgers and fries, for crying out loud! So the two of us went out and searched for a local boulangerie to buy freshly baked baguette to eat as the Parisians do. We both agreed we wouldn't spend our precious euros just for some American-inspired junk food. In Lourdes, only the two of us deliberately didn't bring any food. I only brought a bottle of wine. We told ourselves that we would just buy baguette there. Unfortunately, the place was like a ghost town every Sunday. Lu and I went around the whole town and found all the boulageries closed. Good thing the rest of them brought sandwiches and chocolates.

Two weeks ago, we had a send-off party for Lu at Red Box, Greenbelt. It was also for Tet, who is set to study in Perpignan, France this September. (This one's another remarkable woman. She was our very first French teacher who never made us feel that we were in the classroom. She made learning a foreign language fun and, believe it or not, exciting. Being younger than most of us, she was more like a friend during class.)

Last Saturday, we met again for dinner at Chili's, Greenbelt. We enjoy prolonged goodbyes like that. Afterwhich, we headed straight to Starbucks where we surreptitiously drank Jera's sake and a bottle Japanese peach wine, the latter was good; the former tasted like mouthwash. I told Lu she deserves whatever she has right now. She has dreamed fiercely and worked tirelessly for it. I'm sure she's destined for great things. You can see it in her eyes. She can be an ambassador or probably this country's representative to the UN. If not she can always take a job as a model in those idiotic videoke footages.

She's probably in Paris now, waiting for her class to start, perhaps still clutching a half-eaten French bread. As she used to say whenever we were looking at our Paris maps, “nous sommes ititch” [a bastardization of “nous sommes ici” which means “we are here”]. She's no longer 'ititch' (whatever the hell that word means). But who knows, we might actually find ourselves together again, talking about existentialism while munching baguette and drooling over some impressionist painting being sold on Parisian gutter.

ghost bands, seiko wallets, and bikini lines

Glenna woke me up in the middle of the night. The first thing that crossed my mind was an accident, a fire. There must be a fire. But then, I remembered I was inside a tent pitched on the peak of a mountain and it had been raining all night. How could we have fire? Groggy, I pushed myself up from the sleeping bag which was spread out inside the wet tent. Glenna was holding up the tent flaps to reveal the star-studded night sky. The rain had stopped. Insects were chirping monotonously. The fog was gone. It had hovered around us while we were passing around the huge bottle of Red Horse Beer under the canopy which our guide had set up.

“Look at the sky,” Glenna was saying. For a moment, I forgot the damned, protruding root on which I had been lying all night. “Wow,” I simply said. The stars weren't as bright as they appear when you're on the beach but they were numerous enough, and marvelous, too, something that is not visible in Manila's nebulous skies. Eric, who was sleeping beside me, got up, too. A moment later, the three of us were outside the tent, trying to find where the hell Orion's belt was. Glenna was wrapped in her apple green blanket (which had provided us warmth while we were sleeping) and I was swathed with my black sarong and jacket. We had set up camp a few meters from the cliff. From this vantage point, we could see the moonlit treetops with white fog clinging on them like purified mucus.

Looming against the slightly luminous horizon was another peak, Mount Nabio, a quarrying site of expensive pink marble called “Tea Rose.” Mang Carling, our guide, had told us that it is being exported to China because the Chinese, superstitious as they are, believe it brings good luck.

“We've been running short on water since quarrying started,” he claimed. “Our water supply mainly comes from that mountain.” Mang Carling shook his head and looked at Mount Nabio whose sides had been lopped off, exposing the prized marble. One person's luck is another's misfortune, indeed.

I had thought the rain wouldn't stop. It had started a few minutes before we reached the summit, which was already after sunset.Glenna took a respite just before we reached the top. “You guys can go ahead,” she said. There was a slight drizzle and it was dark all around. I don't exactly know how the hell she planned to catch up with us.

Earlier, she was so exhausted she almost threw away my small box of chocolate cookies, which, at that time, was the only thing she was carrying, after having given her load to Mang Carling. As for me, I was tempted to just chuck the huge bottle of Red Horse Beer I had in my right hand. All I wanted was a swig of cold water from my canteen. Beer was of no value to me then.

Upon reaching the peak, we cooked rice, instant noodles, and heated the canned sisig. Actually, it was Eric who did most of the cooking. I merely watched or pretended to be helping out. I would've probably ruined our dinner if I had actually lent him a hand.

It was the most sumptuous meal I've ever had. Our exhaustion and the mountain's eerie coldness made everything seem delicious. Food that I would not even dare touch in less spartan circumstances were like gourmet dishes up there, mouth-watering and ten times more satisfying. None of us thought of bringing plates so we were forced to eat from the small cauldron. This is perhaps how soldiers feel, Allan later commented. Cooped up under a canopy tied to tree branches, we were more like stragglers waiting for the war to end.

The rain pelted down harshly after dinner. The fog got so thick we could only see hazy images of what lay beyond it. In this sorry plight, we started cracking age-old jokes about horny nuns, Boy Bastos (Lecherous Joe), and human excretions. I've heard most of these jokes a thousand times before but it was fun laughing at them again, especially in this campsite where a slight gust of wind splashed rainwater on our faces and the mud, onto which our wet feet were firmly planted, sent tickly little insects up our legs. Puddles of water were accummulating all around us. And our tents were slowly being flooded. None of us, though, felt the need to panic or freak out. We just stayed there under the canopy, watching the swaying trees as if they were part of a huge video wall.

Because I had just recovered from the flu, I wasn't too keen on joining them. I had thought that it would be so cold I would have fever again. I soon found out that I would be way too exhausted to worry about getting sick. And, of course, the exhiliration that followed after having reached the summit was enough to scare away my viral infection. All throughout the chilly night, we could hear the rushing waters of the river down below. Snaking its way all around the mountain, this river feeds the residential areas dotting the foot of Mount Manalmon. Before we finally left Biak-na-Bato, we enjoyed swimming in this river despite its brownish green color. A bamboo raft that was tethered near the bank served as our resting place (for the river was quite deep). I tried swimming across the river a couple of times, careful not to be carried off downstream by the current. Glenna and Noelle mostly stayed on the raft. From the snatches of conversations I overheard, they were talking about the former's tattoo, her motorcycling days, and Brazilian bare, which reminded me to have my head shaved as soon as I got back to Manila. (Don't ask me what my shaved head has to do with their bikini lines.)

Mount Manalmon in historic Biak-na-Bato was the mountain hideout of Filipino revolutionaries who fought against Spanish forces in the nineteenth century. It was also the site of the peace treaty between the Spanish and the Filipinos on August 9, 1897. It was Eric who combed the net to find this mountain. He had excitedly showed me pics of this place in his computer and then proceeded to discuss how we would get there. It seemed like a thrilling adventure. At least, it was relatively safer than our original destination, Mount Pinatubo which, I heard, was a bit difficult to climb, especially in this weather.

Mount Manalmon was comparatively easy to climb. In fact, Eric said that seasoned mountaineers won't even categorize it a Level 1 trek. It was just a fun trek, plain and simple. Everest conquerors Leo Oracion and Erwin 'Pastor' Ermata scaled this mountain in a record time of thirty minutes. To my reckoning, our little group of six (including our guide) took around an hour and a half to reach the top.

The narrow tracks were fringed with lush bushes and thick bamboos. Don't touch the bamboo's hairy part, Mang Carling had warned, it can make your skin itch. But the warning came too late. I think Noelle and Glenna had already touched it. Some parts of the track sloped steeply up, which was not really a problem for me. What I found really scary was the descent.

Having a slight acrophobia, I dreaded the way down. My knees were like jelo quivering on a frying pan as I precariously inched my way on the muddy path, sometimes planting both hands on the mud to support my body. It didn't help to see that some parts of the track opened out to a cliff on one side. I would've probably come tumbling down to my death if I had so much as lost my footing. Eric noticed my snail pace so he walked right in front of me and instructed me to hold on to his backpack for support in case I felt I needed it.

Mang Carling suggested that we take another route going down. It was less steep but we needed to cross the river with a strong current and pass through a cave. That sounded exciting so we all agreed. Through a path made up of sharp boulders, we crawled down to the riverbank. We were told to hold our bags up our heads as the water was chest high. And the current can carry you off if you stray away from the designated path. Like soldiers on their way to some jungle combat, we braved the waters and crossed the river.

Looming high on the other side was a humungous rock formation crowned by the entrance of the cave. Like one of those dark medieval fortresses perched beside a precipice, it looked formidable and daunting. But the actual ascent was quite easy despite the razor-sharp rocks. It has undoubtedly been climbed a thousand times before by those who came before us. Noelle even saw some graffiti on the rocks dating back to 1939.

Upon reaching the entrance of the cave, a yawning aperture with moss covered stalactites, we lingered for a while to admire the magnificence of the place. Mang Carling was quick to announce that it had been the cave of some birdie character in a birdie fantasy soap on local TV. I believe the soap was entitled Mulawin (sorry, I'm not really into local pop culture, it's nausea-inducing for me). True enough, when we entered the cave, there were still some long bunting-like décor hung around the place. The bastards didn't even care to clean up after their shoot. Like a true tourist guide, Mang Carling pointed out the bullet marks on the cave walls. Those were from the last war, he said. I wondered how many died within those walls. I can only hope that the birdie soap's production crew were among them.

At the other opening of the cave was a wooden placard marking the spot where a rock formation that uncannily looked like some Catholic saint was found in the nineteenth century. The rock, it claimed, is now in Rome, probably a curious museum artifact from a (still) fiercely Catholic country, if not an object of pious devotion. The other entrance of the cave opened out to an extremely slippery flight of steps with wooden crosses at regular intervals. “Stations of the cross,” one of the guys said. They looked more like tomb markers to me. Aside from its historical value, the cave, apparently, also has spiritual significance.

Most Philippine mountains, for that matter, have some sort of supernatural story attached to it. Natives still consider mountains to be the lair of spirits, Christian or otherwise. Animistic and pagan beliefs have somehow survived despite the hegemony of Catholicism. In fact, these beliefs have made Christianity more colorful in this part of the world. With its schizophrenic mix of superstitions, voodoo magic, amulet powers, self flagellation, and devotion to the obscurest saints, Catholicism in the Philippines is a perfect case for socio-cultural studies. Due to their mysterious air that provides a perfect backdrop to supernatural phenomona, mountains have become sites of spiritual and religious activities. They even have legends that usually explain how they got their names. Mount Manalmon is not exempt from this. Seeing our interest, Mang Carling eagerly regaled us with the legend of Mount Manalmon.

It got its name from the Tagalog word lamon (to devour). Legend has it that a hunter, after having shot a white deer (or a goat, I don't really remember), was suddenly sucked in by solid rock. He got buried up to his knees. His relatives were told that he could only be saved by pouring a concoction of lime and betelnut juice around his knees. A local healer told them to prepare this concoction in very precise proportions. Due to lack of betelnut juice, however, the man's relatives diluted the liquid with water. And so, when they poured it around the poor man, the rock got mad and completely devoured him alive. Thus, the name.

That night, we witnessed a supposedly “supernatural” occurrence. While busy discussing the travails of Boy Bastos and his horny cohorts, we heard a faint, thumping music. It sounded like it was coming from some distant, tawdry bar where pot-bellied old farts are given to boisterous, terribly off-key karaoke singing and wanton drinking. The sound lingered for quite a while and we promptly forgot about it.

The next day, Mang Carling, asked us if we had heard the music the night before. We all replied to the affirmative. “We call it bandang gala (wandering band),” he explained. “Every night, we hear their music. Sometimes it comes from the west, sometimes from the east, sometimes from there,” he pointed to a distant forested area where no human settlements are known to exist. “If you had listened closely, you would have noticed that the music is old-fashioned, quite unlike what you hear on the radio today,” he added.

“It sounded more like disco music to me,” Glenna said. Whatever it was, I was not convinced that it was some sort of ghost Beatles having a gig up and down the rugged terrain. It was hard enough to climb this mountain with backpacks, let alone with a drum set.

The real music that night came from our tent. Eric, Glenna, and I were lying on our back, our feet wrapped in plastic bags to keep them dry. I was dreaming of apple juice with celery and cabbage while that blasted root on my back was giving me high-grade scoliosis. Out of the blue, Glenna started a heartful rendition of an extremely popular 80s ditty:

“YC bikini briefs
for the man who packs a wallop
YC packs action
YC packs fashion
YC packs beauty in motion
YC is for you!
YC bikini briefs
YC bikini briefs
YC bikini briefs”

Then, I requested that we sing something that was closer to my heart:

“Seiko, seiko wallet
Ang wallet na maswerte
Balat nito ay genuine
International pa ang mga design...”

After that, we launched into an unforgettable interpretation of “Si Filimon, si Filimon.” I had wanted to sing Yakult's jingle (“Yan ang diwa ng Yakult, syang tunay na diwa ng Yakult”) but none of them knew the words. Now that's something that could shame even the best bandang gala (wandering band) Mount Manalmon had to offer.

I don't remember having slept that night, thanks to that fucking root. But of course, Glenna and Eric thought otherwise. When I told Glenna that I felt I hadn't slept at all, all I got was a crisp “Bwaka nang ina mo!” (roughly translated, that's “Fuck you!”). My snore, apparently, could be heard as far as Mount Nabio, the other peak.

That night ended with us fantasizing about Ace Water Spa's water jets massaging our bare skin. I guess you already know where we all trooped to as soon as we got back to Manila.

kinky omens, procrastination, and bathroom deodorizer

Seen from my bedroom window, the overcast sky seems less ominous. It does not foretell disasters. It merely hints at kinky omens. The fragrance of a garishly colored candle on my bed stand reminds me of bathroom deodorizer. It also reminds me to head off to the bathroom and take a shower before I run late for work today. Traffic will probably be bad and street urchins will have a grand time dousing windshields with soaped water in exchange for a few coins. Vendors will have a brisk sale of umbrellas that won’t open after the third use. Expletives and cusswords will come flying like bees as motorists try to outdo each other in owning the road. And I, well, I will be saddled with thoughts of things I should’ve done but didn’t do. The allure of procrastination and the beauty of regret that hounds it. The office party I missed last Friday has nothing to do with this. Nor the LF anniversary party last Saturday, where, after having psyched myself to down at least a dozen beers, I ended up finishing only half a bottle because I had LBM. Having LBM at a party is a disaster worse than the Great Deluge. Worse, indeed, than how doomsayers interpret the overcast sky outside my window right now. But I’ll have a worse fate if I don’t prepare to go to work now. The road will be swarming with procrastinators rushing to get to their offices today. And believe me, it will not be a good sight.

It’s great to be back.

i touched my chest again

Memories and friends grow on your skin like a sweeping bas-relief. I have mine cleanly carved on my chest. I might not see it as often as I want to but it’s just there, silently waiting. Erica made me caress my chest again. Painful and sweet. Remembrance squishes me to a pulp and resurrects who I was years ago, back when my job hasn’t forged prison bars yet; when I used to swish into the dialectics of life and art; when I used to get drunk with the craziness that only theater people can elegantly get away with. It was both cerebral and visceral. Thanks, Erica, for bringing back the memories. Yes, we can start weeping again.

"Bound Faith"

Model: Erica

Photographed by Nelz Agustin

a special caller

A friend emailed me about contentment and taking risks. He said something about my life being so pregnant with exciting things. So much seems to be happening to me. I was mildly jolted. Can I really be projecting such a buoyant façade?

I told him that my life is far from what he has imagined. The crust belies the muck inside, nice and warm, sweetly twirling with bits of undigested steak.

Ennui always tugs at the fringes of my psyche, threatening to invade it if I won’t graciously let it in. Most of the time I do, albeit with reluctance. I offer it tea and cake and a platter of muck. Taste my soul, I would always say. And it would flash a wan smile as it slurps in my muck.

Conversations are always wry and bland.

"Would you like to talk to my liver instead?"

"No, thank you, I’d rather stay here and keep myself comfy."

"Suit yourself then."

That’s the part when we would both stare at the ceiling and scratch our balls until they bleed. And then it would scurry out without warning (Ennui, not my balls), leaving purple footprints on my floor. With repugnance and longing, I look out of the window and wait for its next visit.

Yes, so many exciting things happen in my life.

these fucktards made my day!

It’s good to be in the company of friends who don’t regard me as a museum oddity. Friends who can read through the massive fortress I have erected to shield my feebleness; friends who offer me a puff of their Dunhill cigarettes and encourage me, a non-smoker, to go on and try it like I were some high school kid; friends who would offer to give me a wet smooch, tongue and all, whenever I feel I’ve been shortchanged by love; friends who would listen to and argue with me at Starbucks, oftentimes impaling me with their scathing diatribes for fucking up my own life; friends who strive to see things through my eyes without necessarily conceding; friends who don’t look at me like I was a talking specimen of alien life forms from Pluto; friends who do not lick my ass now and bugger it with a chainsaw the next moment; friends who do not go around announcing to the whole world how dirty my undies are.

Oh yes, they do exist. Through billows of cigarette smoke, they give you their smirks and smiles and dirty fingers. Over tall glasses of Frapuccino, they slap you awake with crisp curses, obscenities, and blasphemies so hard that the customers on the other table think you’re a bunch of Satanists out on a holiday. Whenever you’re feeling blue, they would not even try to comfort you. They’d tear and mangle and desecrate your very soul while trying to decipher your psyche. And then, when you’re already dismembered and bleeding, they would knock you down with their own take on your issues and suddenly you feel like a lame fucktard for having felt depressed in the first place and then you’d just laugh your ass off and then put your ass back in place and laugh it off again and slap it back in place ad infinitum.

After hanging out with them last night, I felt I could breathe again.

my swim team

“How do you do that, kuya? Can you teach me how to do that?” A boy asked me when I reached the other end of the Olympic-size pool. I didn’t reply. I just smiled and thought of the most creative way to shoo him away so I could continue my laps. I haven’t swum in about a month. I deserve some peace and quiet while I wrestle with my favorite element.

Before I knew it, his other kiddie friends were already swarming around me, their shrill voices scratching off my eardrums.

“Yeah, kuya, that was great! How do you do that?”

“Teach me how to swim, too.”

“Me too!”

“Count me in!”

And so I became an instant swimming instructor. There was no point in dampening their enthusiasm. I couldn’t switch on my jerk mode to kids. I can’t bawl them out like I did to this idiotic French woman who shouted at me because she didn’t want her hair to get wet in the pool. I slapped cusswords on her face, both in English and in French. That snooty bitch! Just because I was in her country doesn’t mean that she had the right to order me around like she owned the fucking pool.

But that’s a different story. These kids didn’t mind getting their hair wet. And they didn’t mind having me as their swim coach.

Recalling my swim class days, I started out with correct breathing.

“Like this, manong, like this? Am I doing it right, manong?”

No, you’re doing it wrong, kid. Release the air through your nose.

“Oh yeah, like this, manong? I can do it now, manong.”

Yeah, whatever. Ok, moving on. Floating. Try to float face down, with your arms stretched in front of you, on the water.

“That’s so hard, manong. Let’s go to that arm movement thing now, manong. Come on, teach us that, manong.”

Ok, let me get this straight, pesky kid. You’ve got to learn how to keep your ass floating before you could do the strokes, do you understand? And please, stop calling me manong if you don’t want to end up puking and shitting chlorinated water by the time we’re done, is that clear?

Now, the feet. This is how you propel yourself through the water. Watch me do it.

“I can see kuya’s briefs! I can see his briefs underwater!”

That’s called trunks, dearie. And give me back my goggles before you see other unsightly apparitions down there.

Now, you kids practice what I taught you and then I’ll come back. I’ll just do a few more laps, is that all right?

“Yes, kuya!”

And I swam away from the excited younglings as fast as I could. When I returned, they were still at it, swimming away like wiggly ducks, except one chubby girl.

“Why aren’t you practicing what I taught you?” I asked.

“I’m tired. It’s just too difficult. What’s your name, kuya? I’m Jenny and that boy is so-and-so and that other boy is so-and-so and that girl is blah blah”

Only her name stuck. Jenny.

“How did you learn to swim like that, kuya?” Jenny asked.

I took lessons when I was a kid like you, I replied.

I was actually enjoying hanging out with them! I usually don’t bring friends along whenever I go lap swimming because they always distract me, especially those whose idea of swimming is clinging onto the side tiles until moss grows over their fingers. We have a special thing going on, water and I. That’s where I become free and whole and one with my spirit. And I don’t want anybody to disrupt that.

But these kids were different. Perhaps it was their enthusiasm to learn that got me. I don’t know.

Since the pool would be closing in an hour, I told Jenny I had to do more laps and then swim back again to give them more swimming tips. When I reached the other end of the pool, I heard a man reprimanding his two sons for having talked to a stranger. Funny how two different worlds can exist on two sides of a pool.

I smiled. The scene was so ironically unnatural like a contrived plot. Clearly, it was not the side of the pool where I should be hanging out.

I swam back to the other side, where kids were free to take swimming lessons from strangers and where my swim team was struggling with their laps. I had yet to teach them the arm movement.

edible decor and ice-cold waterfall

A dip into the frigid waters of Taytay Falls in Majayjay was not part of the plan. We were in Quezon Province for the Pahiyas Festival, so, naturally, nobody thought of bringing swimsuits or at least, a change of undies. We didn’t think we’d end up in Majayjay. But what the heck, we were already in front of the cascade. The water was pristine; the falls was splendid! It was a veritable “paradise on earth,” except that, instead of cherubs, it had countless imps perched on boulders, doing all sorts of un-paradise-y stuff such as cooking rice, chattering, screaming, drinking, loitering, and littering.

But it was still a paradise, nevertheless. Which pissed me off all the more—why the hell didn’t I bring my trunks and goggles? Everywhere I go—yes, sometimes, even to class—I always have my black Speedo trunks and my Speedo goggles (with its snake eyes hologram) with me. Being someone who dreams of becoming a fish, I’m always ready to strip and plunge into the water anytime. But this time, I had been a tad too obedient to la Présidente Dionne, our indefatigable organizer and French class leader, who advised us to pack light or, if possible, not to bring a bag at all since we would do a lot of walking around Lucban. She, too, didn’t foresee that we would drive through the sloping, roller-coastery road to Majayjay in wobbly tricycles; trek a kilometer of man-made trail that sometimes narrowed down to allow only a single file at a time; and behold something as breathtaking as this waterfall.

So there we were, seated on mossy rocks, thinking if we should just throw all our cares to the wind, strip down to our undies, and swim. It made Weng recall what brand of panties she wore that morning. It also made me think, did I wear bacon briefs? (In case you don’t know, bacon briefs are undies which are so worn out that the garter has already curled up like bacon).

I wouldn’t want to wade in the water in my jeans. That’s way too uncomfy especially in a body of water with a strong current; there was no way I could swim freely with a pair of denims on. After dilly-dallying for a couple of minutes, I saw Bon, Marc, and Ara who were already splashing in the water with their clothes on. Their wide smiles were enough to convince me to strip down to my underwear, bacon briefs or not, and jump into the chilly waters.

So, with nothing but a black sando and my black briefs (thank goodness it was black, at least, from afar, I looked like I was wearing Speedo), I negotiated my way toward the falls, through slippery boulders and past sunbathing manangs, to enjoy an hour of communing with my element.

Water, incidentally, is also Bon’s element. No wonder she swam eagerly even if the jagged rocks underneath scathed and wounded her. By the time we got back to Lucban, her shin was already bleeding.

I, too, got bruised as my toes and legs bumped and brushed against the ruggedness of the underwater terrain. The experience was quite refreshing, nonetheless. Despite the sweat-inducing ruthlessness of the midday sun, we shivered in the water. You could actually soak a warm bottle of wine there for about thirty minutes and it would come out nice and cool, ready to be quaffed. In fact, some quivering men were drinking brandy near the falls just to survive the coldness of the water.

Within a few minutes, most of us were already soaking wet—Dax, Weng, Lu, Marc (who were all fully dressed), Dulce and her beau, Eric (so happy for you, brod!), Jera and Bianco, and the rest of the gang. Michelle, Cely, Dionne, and Joven walked back up to the parking lot to wait for us. Some of the FSI people stayed on the banks. Weng, Lu, and Dax, I believe, just wanted to dip their feet but I saw the guys splashing water on them; instinctively, I joined in the fun and they all ended up like soggy rag dolls.

I, on the other hand, enjoyed the cold water as it swallowed up my skinny frame and made my tiny bones tingle. I even tried opening my eyes underwater, something I haven’t done since I learned how to swim eons ago. During my formal swimming classes, I would only open my eyes in the water with the aid of a trusty pair of goggles. I was so afraid that my eyes would get irritated not so much because of chlorine or salt water as because my eyelashes easily got stuck in my eyes. And it was always a terrible experience. I somehow carried this childhood fear up to my adult swimming years.

But there, at Taytay Falls, without my goggles, I was forced to open my eyes underwater. Though the view was fuzzy and my freaking lashes were still bothering me, I was able to amply enjoy the sights down there. Hackneyed as this may sound, the water was crystal clear, and that helped me a lot in seeing my way through the raging waters.

We tried staying right under the falls to enjoy the sensation as the water pelted our backs and heads like frozen arrows. But I didn’t stay there long, fearing that the water might actually drill through my skull.

An hour after, our body temperature was already below normal. It was time to head back to Lucban as the jeep would be arriving around 3:00. So we crawled out of the water, and prepared to trek back to the parking lot, along the trail fringed with a pure gushing brook on one side and a verdant gorge peppered with huge rocks on the other. This well-trodden path was sometimes slushy with creamy mud and at times gory with generous splashes of fresh human blood (on our way there, we had come across a man with a bleeding foot being carried away from the falls; I was told he had been wounded by glass shards. Every drop of blood we passed by made Michelle recoil.).

With dripping clothes, we headed back to what we came there for in the first place—the Pahiyas Festival in Lucban.

Edible décor and commercialism. Bedecked in multicolored rice wafers called kipings, the houses seemed like obese bejeweled matrons in a soiree. With a confusion of stinging oranges, blushing pinks, striking blues, fiery greens, bleeding reds, and giggling yellows, the streets were oozing with old-world gaiety and rural merriment. There were tomatoes (or longanisas) strung together and made to appear like Christmas garlands; water falls with painted paper backgrounds; plastic ponds with real fish swimming about; curtains made of string beans; chandeliers made of kipings; and carabaos made of rice stalks. Some even included live chickens in the décor. Tethered on one of the trees was a real, pensive carabao with some sort of headdress. (Three or four Pahiyas festivals ago, I even saw a live monitor lizard among the fruits and vegetables here. We should have a law against the use of animals for decorative purposes.)

Big companies, however, are quick to wring dry any event of its commercial potential. Those traditional rice wafers are not enough, they must've thought. There has to be some touch of class, of élan, of elegance. So, along with kipings, fruits, and vegetables, sprang screaming posters of Globe Telecom (“Making Great Things Possible”) and San Miguel Beer (“Itaas Mo!”) displayed prominently in strategic places. Even the control numbers of each decorated house had Globe’s logo. The walking papier-mâché giants were draped with big banners of Western Union Money Transfer or McDonald’s or Aling Pacita’s Funeral Parlor (“We Embalm You While You Wait”) or whatever local enterprise sponsored them.

When Weng and I went out to look for her friend’s house, we saw a truck filled with people tossing Philam Life shirts to the excited crowd below. And on one side, there was a mascot of Eddie the Electric Bill Collector of MERALCO. I won’t be surprised if they come up with Kadyo the Kubrador ng Jueteng mascot next time. When the morning procession snaked out, I was actually expecting the town’s patron saint, San Isidro Labrador to come out wearing a T-shirt that says Lhuiller Pawnshop, Isangla Mo!

But what can we do? These companies are the reason why such festivals still survive. They provide funding in exchange for product exposure. That’s how it works these days. I’m surprised why they haven’t infiltrated the fiesta Mass yet to include casual mention of their products during the liturgy. The priest can go “This Communion is brought to you by Ginebra San Miguel, Bilog Ang Mundo.” Amen to that, Father.

I had no choice but to force myself to dismiss the crass commercialist mood of the festival as just a minor distraction, like pus on smooth skin, or like the bloody cut on Bon’s pale shin. If I fuss about it so much, I won’t get to enjoy the sights. So, forgetting this ugly dreg of our increasingly capitalistic society, we inched through the narrow, crowded streets of Lucban, taking pictures left and right, posing in front of the most colorful houses, and even going up to their second floors. The owners were gracious enough to invite us in.

In one of the houses we entered, Dax chatted with the owner who politely explained how kipings were made. It would’ve been nice to sit with her and chat for a few minutes but the house was getting crowded and we had to prepare for our photo op.

On our way out, there was this tactless guy who said, within hearing range of the polite owner, that guests entering their house should also be fed since this was a fiesta. I controlled the urge to trip him at the stairs so he could go tumbling face first all the way down to the concrete floor below. Being thick hided is one thing; being abusive is another matter altogether.

Which is not to say that we were not famished. Well, our intestines, too, were sort of grumbling already. But we weren’t that famished yet to demand that we be fed by strangers who were already kind enough to let us in their houses to be photographed. Jeez.

Feeding time came quite early. We dropped by Café San Luis, a crowded, Mediterranean-inspired alfresco restaurant managed by a tanned girl in a pink tube top and a cowboy hat. Amazingly, all 24 of us found seats, courtesy of la Présidente who, having gone there ahead of us, must’ve elbowed other guests off the tables to reserve seats. Part of the meal, of course, was the famous pancit habhab. Ok, Michelle, let’s say that again, it’s habhab, not hadhad. The latter is an itchy, smelly skin disease found in the genital area. Let me say that again, habhab.

This Chinese noodle, which is traditionally eaten by devouring it doggie-fashion, without spoon or fork or bare hands, is best served with local vinegar. The rest ate puto and dinuguan (pig’s blood stew).

Snacks (or more appropriately, a very early dinner) was served in Bon’s aunt’s house. While some of us were still dripping with water and sweat, we eagerly partook of the food at the feast table. The fruit and potato salads, which I eventually shared with Michelle after I got for myself two helpings, were awesome! Credit to Bon’s aunt who was kind enough to feed 24 people who just came from a dusty trip from Majayjay.

Before sundown, we were already walking toward the edge of the town where our two rented vans were waiting. In the van, we still had some energy to discuss the local rebels’ disgust over China’s emerging capitalist thrusts (let’s listen to Lu’s lecture on this; nope, she won’t be making up one of her stories like she did in Paris: “Oh, this must be the exact spot where Marie Antoinette picked her nose before being guillotined!”), the military’s connivance with the Abu Sayyaf and their leaking of a list of enemies of the state, or whatever that list is called (come on, Marc, speak up! What do you know about the military’s stench?), why rainforests are called rainforests (go Dax! This is your field of expertise; I know you’ve got a rainforest somewhere on your body), crustaceans (so Michelle, how many feet does a centipede have? Does it fall under the Crustacea family?), and so many other unprintable topics. There was even some room for Michelle’s Spanish song for the Peñafrancia Virgin and some bugtungan (“Ang ano ni Nena, bubuka-bukaka”).

As the night deepened, and after an exhausting conversation in French, our mouths (nos bouches? Hehe) finally got tired, and we fell asleep.

I’m wondering where our next stop would be. Did I hear someone say Peñafrancia? I guess we just have to wait for invitations from true-blooded Bicolanos, right Dax, Michelle? I’d start packing my trunks and goggles this early, just in case.

this is the FUSS time i'm gonna say i love you

It was an episode straight from Survivor, sans the bickering and psycho-emotional torture. The location was picturesque Quezon Island, one of the most frequented islands among the one hundred dotting the seas of Pangasinan.

Since it had Spartan amenities, we were forced to eat our dinner—de-boned milkfish and eggplant (grilled to mouth-watering perfection by RR, Lawrence, and Lester) squid adobo, steamed shrimps, rice, and mangoes—under the dying light of a kerosene lamp. After which, we washed our soiled hands with nothing but brine and sand.

Because of dark, waterless bathrooms that stunk to high heavens, the women did their peeing in the sea. Gail even had the luxury of having spotlights trained on her while she was peeing—one from JP’s flashlight and the other from some bozo up on the pavilion (I swear, Gail, it wasn’t me! It was JP and that perverted guy). As for us, guys, we had no choice but to relieve our bladders like dogs in dark, nondescript spots. JP, who had the misfortune of feeling the call of nature after dinner, had to defecate and endure the stench of the bathroom up on the rocky hill. I hate to think how he washed himself after that, if he did wash at all.

We had also been given a handful of challenges to hurdle:

1. Take off your wet clothes and change into dry ones on the beach, in front of each other, using a flashlight, a sarong (a long, tie-dyed piece of thin fabric), or a towel.

2. Find out how you could cramp yourselves (we were six) inside a small tent and spend the night there like tuna soaked in salt water.


3. Try to sleep sound as shrieking monster-children scurry after a blasted talangka (tiny crab) that seems to be unexplainably drawn to your tent.

4. At two in the morning, try to sleep in peace as that same freaky talangka seeks refuge under your sheets and crawls its way to salvation from the shrieking monster-children.

5. Without using soap or shower gel, rinse the sand, sweat, and seawater off your body with just five cups of distilled water brought in from mainland Pangasinan.

6. (I’ve got an immunity charm from this one) Have a good night’s sleep while Chris angelically snores his lungs out inside the tent.

7. (This one’s just for JP) Hold your breath as long as you could while you shit inside the stinking bathroom and die of lack of oxygen. Or inhale with gusto the putrid smell of shit and die of suffocation.

We also had self-inflicted challenges courtesy of that time-tested, weather-beaten, intellectually challenging game, Truth or Consequence. It made Licel seek out pebbles in the dark and sent Nikki to the task of pulling our huge and heavy distilled water container from the tent up to our spot near the sand bar (with some help from her sweetie-pie JP, after much prodding from us). I, on the other hand, was ordered to find a stranger and introduce him to our group. This amid riotous laughter, teasing, and ribbing from all of us, most especially from RR and Lester who had gotten the Dolphy-Panchito routine down pat.

The game also led to RR’s confession regarding his feelings for Adie. Good thing she was back in the tent at that time, enabling RR to pour his heart out to us. When she finally returned, we knew what to do.

If it weren’t dark, I’m sure I would’ve seen Adie blush as we teased him to RR, who, as the night waned and as the alcohol took hold of his tongue-with-a-built-in-subwoofer, became increasingly bolder in hinting at his feelings for Adie (do I smell professions of love this early?). The next morning, when Adie lost her slippers to beach thieves, he graciously offered his own and tiptoed his way on the boiling sand. Ahh, the things one would do for love!

The rest of our night was spent waiting for shooting stars while Lester and RR provided entertainment through their non-stop Dolphy and Panchito antics. If RR has a built-in subwoofer, Lester has a whole sound system down his throat; you could hear these two whisper ten kilometers away.

I had a natural high swimming the morning after. Only Gail, clad in an oversized orange life vest and snorkeling goggles, was gutsy enough to join me in the deep part of the sea. Most of the time, though, I unconsciously left her as I swam farther to even deeper waters. Because of this, we became known as the tandem, Aqua Man and Goggle Girl, whatever the hell that means.


The corals in these parts were rather drab and gray. And the fish, too, seemed to be of the dull hue. Upon further inspection underwater, I found out that the boats docked on the beach were anchored on these same corals. I hate to think what would be left of them after a few years.

After a quick early morning swim, we went back to our tent to have ripe mangoes as breakfast. They were so sweet I devoured around three or four in one sitting. We personally picked some of these from mango trees in Tilbang (did I get the name right?) the day before.

Rewind to Tilbang, one day before…

Using Nikki’s pick-up, we drove to Tilbang to pick some fresh mangoes. It was a good thirty-minute drive from downtown Alaminos. In the car, we started talking about the liters of sunblock I poured on myself but somehow ended up talking about Star for A Night champion Sarah Geronimo’s latest hit (This is the FUSS time, I’m gonna say I love you/It’s the FUSS time I’ve ever felt so helpless deep inside.)

Which got me thinking. Why don’t we have something like Search for the Star Phonetics Teacher of the Night? The champion could win, among other prizes, a five-year contract as speech coach of the winners of singing competitions like Search for a Star or Star for a Night so they can learn to pronounce "first" properly. Just a thought.

When we got to Tilbang where a stretch of parched, dried-up farms lay side by side, we turned right at the exact spot where lazy, loose-skinned cows were hanging around. The cows mark the spot, said Nikki. Once you see those cows, it’s time to turn right. True enough, when we turned right and drove ahead, we found the site. Good landmarks, these cows.

Amid two circular ponds were duhat and mango trees. JP and Nikki led the mango picking with their long bamboo stick. I tried picking mangoes myself but gave it up after I got only three and an army of hantiks (huge red ants). So we, Adie, in her prayer-meeting outfit, Licel, Gail, and I just contented ourselves in posing for the camera.

Fast forward to Quezon Island…

Where was I…Ok, so back to Quezon Island…So there we were, fresh off the sea, ready to jump into the boat and go back to Alaminos when they discovered that they lost their slippers—Adie, Licel, Nikki, and JP. If Gail hadn’t chosen garish, shockingly hot pink slippers that naturally repel thieves within a five-kilometer radius, she, too, would have gone home barefoot. Well, at least, Licel didn’t lose her chopsticks, otherwise she would have nothing to clip her long, rich, frizzy, wiry, Nuestra-Señora-de-Antipolo hair with.

Before we left for the bus station on the morning of May 2, we dropped by Lucap Wharf to check out a concert marking the end of Le Tour de Hundred Islands. Contrary to what I had expected, it wasn’t jologs epicenter after all. With cans of beer and servings of bininghoy (sweet, sticky rice stuffed inside halved bamboos), we enjoyed listening to Bob Marley covers, reggae music, and other standards.

As we went up the bus to go home, I don’t know if it was just me or I really did see some pain in RR’s eyes. Could this be the FUSS time he’s ever felt so helpless deep inside? I don't know. I can't tell. I’d rather not fuss about it.

Freddie Kruger tractor, shit-colored church, and riotous baptism

Exactly one year after Puerto Galera, the gang is together again for yet another summer escapade. This time, though, Flores, Boo, Jake, Raymond, and his friends did not make it. We’re just here with Adie, Licel and her officemates, JP (with his girlfriend, Nikki, whose family lives here), Gail (my seatmate on the bus; I scared her out of her wits with my horror stories as we zoomed through the shadowy countryside last night).

We arrived here in Alaminos City around two this morning, went straight to bed, and woke up to a dry, languid sun. Like any other provincial city, the whole place showcases drab concrete and asphalt everywhere—the usual, ostentatious trappings of cityhood.

Since all these concrete roads and buildings intensify the heat of the sun, I ended up having a slight headache. Not wanting to spend my first few hours here nursing my throbbing temples, I decided to go check out the city all by myself (Licel was busy reading Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress; Adie was hanging around Buddha knows where; and Gail was snoring her way to dreamland).

Just right across Adie’s uncle’s house (where we were staying) is Nepo Alley, a pocketsize mall that houses your usual chain of bland fast food stalls and tiangge-ish boutiques. A walk around the mall, which looked more like a classy, high-ceilinged warehouse, convinced me that it wasn’t a place for me to hang around in. Save from an uncharacteristically clean wet market at its back (where you could have your purchased milkfish de-boned for an additional five pesos; the de-boning process itself is such a joy to watch), there was nothing special to see in there. So I just went into its one-peso-per-pee restroom, relieved my complaining bladder, and headed to the exit.

Just before I went out, I saw this display of “great prizes” for some raffle draw the mall was sponsoring. The third prize was some squarish appliance that looked like a small washing machine or a rice dispenser. Second prize was a weird steel machine with an iron snout straight from the workshop of Freddie Kruger. And the first prize was a long, monstrous agricultural implement. Adie told me later that it’s called a hand tractor or kuliglig. Not exactly the type of prizes I would wildly jump up and down for. It’s a raffle I’d gladly not win in, not unless I’d want to use that freaky tractor thing as paperweight, as Licel ingeniously suggested.

So out went my hunky little ass from that mall-cum-Freddie-Kruger-shop to go to (where else)Alaminos City’s place of worship, St. Joseph’s Cathedral (jeez, I’m getting too predictable).

The church is something that could only come out of an interior designer’s worst nightmare. The whole place was painted tombstone-white while the moldings and trimmings were splashed with a gaudy shade of yellow-green, reminiscent of liquid shit that comes out when you have diarrhea. There was a crass attempt at eclecticism by throwing in together a neo-classic retablo (main altar) in pastel colors and striking stained glass windows depicting the crucified Christ with God the Father behind him. These pieces would’ve looked great individually, but together, the effect was anything but godly.

Priests should be trained at the seminary to cultivate their aesthetic tastes so that such bastardization of supposedly sacred ground would be averted. How can one concentrate on her Hail Mary when the church itself reminds her of an unflushed toilet bowl?

The first few pews near the altar were filled with excited parishioners. There would obviously be a ceremony. Great, I’d get to hear a mass in Pangalatok, or Ilocano, or whatever language they speak here. So I sat down behind one of the scaffolds (they’re not yet done applying shit-colored paint at the choir loft and the ceiling) and waited.

After seeing some wailing babies dressed in lace and satin, I knew that this was going to be a baptism. True enough, a lay minister brought out a tacky, light blue Orocan pitcher and a fluffy white towel. Then, an old, bored-looking priest came out. He silently surveyed the noisy crowd, and, without waiting for them to settle down, he began reading from a small, black book.

He spoke with a calm, soothing, monotonous voice that was as enthusiastic as a static TV screen. The poor guy must’ve officiated religious ceremonies all his life; he must've had one too many. From where I sat, I couldn’t catch what he was saying as the sound system was a bit muffled and he was speaking English with a thick accent. So much for my wish to hear a Pangalatok rite.

Curiously, nobody was listening to him. The people were chatting, laughing, taking pictures, or tinkering with their cell phones. Here and there, the din was accented by a loud cry of a baby or the gleeful squeals of little boys. Restless adults were hopping from one pew to the other, greeting guests and exchanging pleasantries as in a party.

Amid all these, the priest simply continued his monotonous drone, unmindful of the cacophony of chattering and shrieking. A few minutes later, he stepped down from the dais and, followed by his assistant with the Orocan pitcher, perfunctorily blessed and baptized each of the garishly dressed babies.

A confusion of flashbulbs, a concert of clicking cameras, and the whole thing was over. Fifteen new infants had just unwittingly become members of the Church. The priest slowly walked back to the sacristy, with the Orocan guy trailing behind him.

At that point, I also walked out of the church while Frere Jacque was blaring from someone’s cell phone. Somehow, I was no longer pissed by the church’s terrible interiors.

Maybe these people deserve it.

counseling a friend

If I were in her shoes, would I have done the same thing? Sure it is easy for me to dish out advice and to view the situation from afar. But an armchair analyst’s ruminations can never really claw at the flesh to minutely scrutinize the tendons and ligaments. It merely takes in the body as a whole and passes judgment sans the inconvenience of anxieties that could only come from personally experiencing the ordeal. It is this anxiety, however, that compels one to think hard. It is this anxiety that may salvage a life that precariously flounders in the sea like a flotsam.

Sure I have had trysts with married women before. But these were devoid of feelings, merely urges of the flesh. Can these compare to what she is going through? Am I clear-headed enough to give her a piece of my mind regarding her situation?

Would my advice be as valid as what she herself will have figured out after some serious self-introspection? Perhaps not. Perhaps she could do better. Her mind is just blurred with passion and fear. Being at the verge of jumping into an unknowable abyss, she hangs stubbornly onto the thought that her love might not be enough to cushion the fall, or to heal the wounds that she will sustain from it.

As she drank her calamansi juice across the table at Nipa Hut last night, I knew that, whatever I said would just probably be saturated with a million other feelings, thoughts, and fears that are currently tussling in her head.

I’ve done my part. I will just wait until she does hers. And we will both proceed from there.

i can't smile without you

It probably was the hottest party I’ve ever attended. I mean that quite literally. It was nearly midnight but we still felt like slimy, blobby chunks of pork being grilled to perfection for some backyard barbecue party. You’re right, Joven, nothing describes it better than, well, HOT!!!

It was Louis’ birthday bash at his place in Bel-Air, Makati last Saturday. I, together with friends from French class, trooped to his stuffy two-storey house to celebrate with him. As usual, it was such a hilarious night.

The food was great (but then again, almost every dish tastes great for me). Having arrived early, Lu, Dax, Michelle, and I helped out Rose (Louis’ girlfriend) in mincing garlic, chopping beans, and cutting leaves whose names I don’t know. These were supposed to be the ingredients for the pancit which I never got to taste, c’est dommage!

The ever-talented Dulce who always has something unscrewed up there (‘love you, brod!), took centerstage with her guitar and sang songs, sometimes even making up lyrics as she went along—such a great stand-up artist, that woman! After a while, Julien and Veronique and other French guests, who seemed to have sprang up from our Forum 2 textbook (Christophe Weiss n’est pas là?) joined our group, and Dulce regaled them with her songs.

Of course, the undoubted star of the night was—drum roll please—Marc…and his winner smile (peace Marc, hehe). After a tiny accident in Australia, which left him with a slightly different grin, he is back with a vengeance and with a brand new theme song (Everybody now: “You know I can’t smile without you, I can’t smile without you…”).

Years from now, when Marc is already our Secretary of National Defense (which is not impossible to happen considering his penchant for anything military and his love for Napoleonic tactics), don’t fail to visit one of his most treasured landmarks down under (in Australia, stupid!), a framed, cordoned off area of gym parquet with bite marks. (Once again: “You know I can’t smile without you…If you only knew, what I’m going through…”)

While Louis was passing around gin tonic, which he mixed himself, we delighted in posing for Dionne’s cam. But of course, no one can beat Dax, the ubiquitous, ready-for-my-close-up-direk, cover boy of Paris and Rome. Like a beach bum, he had his pic taken on the hammock at the garage.

If ever our plan of coming up with a French class calendar pushes through, Dax would be our January boy so his pic could appear prominently on the first page. Then, we’d also put him in February, March, April, May, etc. He can also be our image model for our latest advocacy project: Wax Dax, a move to wax off all of his excess hair.

As if the ruckus wasn’t enough, an insufferable, attention-deficient, hyperactive cockroach kept on getting into the scene. It crawled, flew, hung around, and danced to the shrieks of Michelle and Dionne.

Dulce eventually gave me her shoe with which I vainly tried to squish the damned thing (a little later, Dulce herself squeezed it with flying colors). The screams attracted the attention of this French kid who went out to see what the fuss was all about. I told him, “C’est une carafe” He just gave me a half-bewildered, half amused stare. Weird kid, I thought.

Later on, I realized I was the weird one. I should’ve said “C’est un cafard. (cockroach)” instead of saying “C’est une carafe (glass flask).” The kid must have thought those Filipinos were nuts, screaming like crazy because of a glass pitcher. So much for trying hard to speak French.

After the cockroach incident came Michelle’s “centipede jokes.” Too much gin tonic really affects everyone’s sense of humor, hehe.

We decided to call it a night around midnight (the last time we partied at Louis’ place, we went home at 3 a. m.). We’d surely miss partying at Louis’ when he finally leaves Manila for Japan.

I still had a party to attend. Jonj had texted me that the old Lingua Franca gang would be meeting up at a bar in Quezon City to get drowned in booze. But I thought it was too late to catch up with the guys. So I just took a quick shower and slumped on my bed.

In a weird dream, I heard a faintly familiar song: “You know I can’t smile without you, I can’t smile without you.”